Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
Since no trouble-free, wartime country has been known to exist, the
goals should be tailored to the troubles of the particular enemy, and
should aim at increasing real difficulties, building up pre-existing
doubts, stimulating genuine internal hostilities. Propaganda which
invents pure novelty gets nowhere. The Russians did not hesitate to
appeal to Bismarck in order to show the professional German soldiers
what a rotter Hitler was, and how stupid the Nazi strategy. But if
Bismarck had actually said nothing on the subject of the army in general
or an Eastern war in particular, they would have been wise to leave him
alone. If the Japanese had tried to make the ex-Confederate States
secede all over again, they would not have gotten anywhere because they
would not have started with a real grievance. But if they had alleged
that the Negro units were used for stevedoring because Whites regarded
Negroes as unworthy of carrying weapons, they might have hit on a real
grievance. The goal must be deeply bedded in reality.
=The Propaganda Man.= It has been pointed out that the true terrain of
psychological warfare--the private thoughts of the enemy people, one by
one--is known only to God. There is, however, a way of finding
approximate terrain. That consists of setting up a hypothetical enemy
listener or reader, and then trying to figure things out from _his_
angle.
The first thing to do with the hypothetical man is to make him fit the
kind of person who does get propaganda. In dealing with China, for
example, it would be no use to take a statistically true Chinese, who
lived on a farm 1.3 acres in size, went to town 5.8 times a year, had
3.6 children, and never read newspapers. The man to be set up would be
the _reachable_ man, the city, town or village dweller who had an income
2.1 times greater than that of the average in his county, who owned 1.7
long coats, and who shared one newspaper with 6.8 neighbors. Take this
lowest-common-denominator of a man who can be reached by enemy
propaganda and by yours. Name him the Propaganda Man. (Realistically
speaking, modal and not arithmetical classes should be set up.)
Make up the prewar life of the Propaganda Man. Use your regional experts
as informants. What kinds of things did he like? What prejudices was he
apt to have? What kind of gossip did he receive and pass along? What
kind of words disgusted him? What kind of patriotic appeal made him do
things? What did he think of your country before the war? What things
did he dislike you and your people for? What myths did he believe about
America--that all Americans drove sports convertibles while drinking
liquor? that all had blonde sweethearts? that all exchanged gunfire
periodically? Of what American things did he think well--food, shoes,
autos, personal freedom, others? What is he apt to be thinking now?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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